Fair welfare

WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2010

After 30 years of welfare reform the public could be forgiven for failing to notice any changes. Successive governments have tried both to get spending under control and to ensure that those who need it get help. Neither task has been achieved.

This new report argues for a new way of thinking about welfare and a new approach to reform. 2020 Welfare: Life, Work, Locality, published today by the 2020 Public Services Trust sets out a route to unlocking citizen action and for greater transparency of welfare spending for ordinary people.

Unlocking - the motivation and energy of
citizens in their - is the greatest untapped resource of our public services,
and especially of our welfare system.

The report identifies the persistent
problems facing welfare policy and looks at how these might be addressed. It provides three
practical directions for policy:

Social welfare
accounts- clearer
visibility of individual contributions (both financial and social) to, and
benefits from, the welfare system and broader public services. This
policy is designed to enhance transparency, bolster the legitimacy of services
and ‘reconnect finance to purpose'. It also has the potential to
support citizens to take greater responsibility for managing risks across
their lifecycle and to encourage, measure and reward greater engagement
and social participation.

Localised welfare - a ‘whole person'
and ‘whole place' approach to welfare based on local control of integrated
employment and welfare services. This policy seeks to make better use of
information about underlying, interrelated drivers of worklessness at a
neighbourhood level.

Integrated welfare - neighbourhoods
are supported in alleviating the long-term drivers of disadvantage in
their area by working with the wider locality/sub-region to align their
intervention with the dynamics of the local labour market and wider
economic development strategy. Ultimately, a regional Living Wage
would enable places to lift more people out of welfare support.

The Commission has
identified three systemic shifts in culture, power and finance, which are
needed to offer an effective route to reform of public services. These shifts underlie the proposals
identified in this report.

2020 Commissioner Bridget Rosewell,
who chaired the Working Group, said:

"Welfare spending is the biggest single element in the government
budget. Tackling this is crucial to
financial management as well as providing the help people need. These three proposals offer a route towards a
different way of doing things. There are
no magic bullets here but instead a new process to energise a failed system.

"The Commission has created a compelling vision of the kinds of change
that are needed to reinvigorate public service.
The three shifts in culture, power and finance away from the expert and
the centre and towards citizens, their families and communities are vital to
creating genuine democracy and effective services."

Ben Lucas, Director
of the 2020 Public Services Trust, said:

"It is vital that at a time of dramatic change for public services
- when the national debate is about what to cut, when to cut it and how to
squeeze out more efficiencies - that local areas get the flexibility to deal with
problems and priorities in a cost effective way that calls upon local
information and resources.

"A localised approach to welfare and employment
addresses many of these problems.
It enables multiple agencies to
integrate their services for more effective solutions to local and/or regional
problems. Local authorities and their partners should agree
how they can best engage and energise local communities to help deliver those
outcomes."

ENDS

For more information
please contact Ashish Prashar on 07775 501 839

Notes to Editors

2020 Welfare: Life,
Work , Locality - The current welfare system is based upon a model
of individual incentives, sanctions and the strict monitoring of
individual compliance. Instead, 2020 Welfare calls for a
dynamic, integrated and more transparent approach that considers citizens
within the context of their pasts, future aspirations, family
relationships and local communities. It also suggests how welfare
could be designed to increase personal responsibility and to make greater
use of broader social capacity. In fiscally constrained times it is
important public services harness this capacity for ‘social productivity',
but for a truly sustainable, effective welfare system we need to ground
our sense of individual entitlement and citizenship within the wider
collective. Download the report.

The
2020 Public Services Trust is a registered charity (no. 1124095), based at
the RSA. It is not aligned with any political party and operates with
independence and impartiality. The Trust exists to stimulate deeper
understanding of the challenges facing public services in the medium term.
Through research, inquiry and discourse, it aims to develop rigorous and
practical solutions, capable of sustaining support across all political
parties. For more information about
the Trust please visit www.2020publicservicestrust.org

The
Trust launched the Commission on 2020 Public Services in December 2008, to
recommend the characteristics of a new public services settlement
appropriate for the future needs and aspirations of citizens, and the best
practical arrangements for its implementation.

Commission members span a wide breadth of political opinion,
experience and expertise from academia, business, the voluntary sector,
and the public policy and political world.
Sir Andrew Foster is the Chair.
The full list of members can be found here.

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